|
|
Steve
wrote a lot of poetry, particularly when he was
troubled or sad.
He also wrote songs and was a good pianist and guitarist,
having a beautiful 12 string guitar and a good voice.
Some of his poems and songsare included here.
|
A
PATTEN FOR LIFE
He was about
the same age as me, (though younger now)
and it hurt to see him write,
when I had so much to say but hadn't learnt the
language.
I used to read,
and read, and read his poems.
I knew what I wanted to say but he said it so
much better
and, unknowingly, mocked me.
That man
used to pluck parts of my life,
spread them naked upon his pages for all to see,
without even asking.
I thought I
had left that, long ago.
I had refused to look, like a child hiding behind
it's hands,
but still he is there, padding stealthily onto
the stage
to catch me unawares, and parade my life in front
of strangers.
He moved, hesitantly,
into the spotlight
smiling nervously at no-one in particular,
holding tight his poems and himself.
I don't know
what I had expected, but not him, certainly not
him.
He was casual in manner and dress, with an accent
to match,
dropping his eyes, his voice and his H's.
He was ordinary.
Successful poets
aren't ordinary
They can't be.
After all, if successful poets can be ordinary
people,
ordinary people can be successful poets.
I didn't want
that.
I had spent too long denying it.
I liked his
poems.
He liked them too.
He didn't need to apologise for his love of love.
And so, as he
quietly spun his web of words, to trap all but
himself,
I wondered by what deft leaps, twists and turns,
by what aching sorrow, pain and anguish,
he had avoided all the carefully set snares that
I had blundered into.
That man
Has no right to be there.
Has no right to say what he says. Has no right
to throw my life to the winds.
Has no right to present himself as himself.
He is an impostor.
It should have
been me.
|
| DROWNING
I
think
We may sink
If we sever our link
We
oughta
Tread water
Together, I think
© Steve Day (with apologies to Ogden Nash!)
|
| THE
ICE DRAGON
Still,
so still in sleepy rest
the ice dragon's valley lies.
A sad-eyed moon weeps on the hills
as evening slowly dies.
An
aching tree shakes silently
in grief for all that's been.
Its final leaves fall fluttering,
its sorrow goes unseen.
A
distant light is shimmering
through splintered silent air.
The wind has died and starlight shines
upon the dragon's lair.
An
ice-blue eye flicks open,
and a crystal cloud of breath
trickles down the hillside,
to bring its creeping death.
The
dragon flies down from the hills
to float above the ground
and leaves its glittering diamond trail
on all, without a sound.
All
through the night the dragon works,
its breath drifts through the air.
By morning all is crystalline,
ice covers all that’s there.
Towards
the east a glow appears
and spreads across the sky.
The dragon soars up to the hills,
his enemy is nigh.
The
sleeping valley stirs again,
through mist the sun's rays burst.
The dragon sleeps deep in his cave
in priceless time immersed.
Copyright SL Day
^back
to top
|
| KNIGHT
IN SHINING ARMOUR
I
heard your cries.
I donned my shining armour and tried to rescue
you
many times.
I
wasn’t a very good knight.
I fell off my horse – repeatedly.
I lost my way.
I was frightened.
Sometimes, no matter how hard I tried to slay
the dragon
I couldn’t,
But I kept it out of reach.
Oh,
I wasn’t always right.
Some of your dragons were mine,
And some of them just seemed anyone’s.
Each
time I rescued you, you cried.
My armour is spotted with rusty streaks.
If you look you can see small corroded holes,
Growing bigger
You
made me your prince,
But, of course, not your king.
However –
The final irony was the discovery
That those fearsome dragons
Had been reared by you,
In your darkened cage.
Copyright
SL Day
^back
to top
|
NEW
TOWN – NEW LIFE
There are footsteps on the ceiling and they send
my senses reeling
And sometimes I can't help feeling that I'm going
mad
There's a banging on the wall and there's a crashing
in the hall
and I am feeling very small here in my bachelor
pad Well
the kids they look so jolly pushing supermarket
trolleys
into decorative hollies that the council supplied
And the cats are busy scrapping whilst the dogs
are gaily crapping
on the paths, to catch you napping as you step
outside
Oh
it's a new town, a new life for me
In a planner's paradise, that won awards for being
'nice'
Yes it's a new town, the perfect place to be
In some architect's creation making instant desolation
Well
the motorbikes are flying down the cycleways,
defying
anyone to stop them trying, but then nobody cares
And the drunks they stagger by and shout their
songs into the sky
and still they piddle 'til they're dry on the
communal stairs
You
should see the evening classes, I believe that
they give passes
in the art of growing grasses (if they're ones
you can smoke)
And there's a pub just down the way that I could
visit any day
where just as long as you can pay you'll find
they'll sell you some coke
Oh
it's a new town, a new life for me
in our duplicated cages built to send us mad in
stages
Yes it's a new town, the perfect place to be
A designer's new invention, it's community detention
It's
a social worker’s paradise, the people they
are very nice
Provided that you're into vice and other things
There's a sister and a brother who are knocking
off each other
Whilst the milkman has the mother every time he
rings
There
is an awful smelly cat I know lives in the downstairs
flat
he has an owner who is fat as anyone could be
Well, I know that she's been drinking when she
starts that awful winking
And I know what she is thinking as she leers at
me
Oh
it's a new town, a new life for me
in our standard dwelling units, you can't let
me out too soon it's
such a brand new town, the perfect place to be
Such a fine administration, so devoid of inspiration
Here
in sunny Peterborough all the people they are
thorough
at upsetting one another throughout every day
There are lots of men who hit their wives and
lots of yobs with shiny knives
Who brighten up our boring lives in every way
There
is a poor demented hound who spends his time locked
in a pound
with only concrete for his ground, so he can't
make a mess
And a bloody great alsatian howls so loud he wakes
the nation
chews his tail out of frustration and his loneliness
Oh
it's a new town, a new life for me!
Copyright
SL Day, , on moving into a flat in Orton Malborne,
Peterborough
^back
to top
|
| ONE
DAY
You crashed into my life
in so many ways
Bursting through the door and then opening it
Sitting yourself down in my space
Settling yourself in comfortably
And looking at me, as if to say
”Well, here I am, what you’ve been
waiting for”
Slightly taken aback,
I stepped forward
And we talked for a while
During the long day we
busied ourselves
with our separate concerns
Yet our paths always seemed to cross
And sometimes we walked next to each other
for quite a long way
As the day grew longer
so did the trail of footsteps
Side by side, and occasionally in step with each
other
Of course, occasionally, we deliberately broke
the rhythm
And sometimes it happened by accident
But we were always heading
in the same direction
And it was inevitable that we should stand
Hand in hand
At the end of the day
Copyright SL Day, ©
October 1983, on meeting Sue at Pampisford Parachute
Centre, Cambridge
^back
to top
|
SHADOW
PEOPLE
So
many people, old and grey, and most before their
time.
They made excuses anyway, too many hills to climb.
Such a pity, such a waste, if only they had tried.
They’re going nowhere, making haste, and dead
before they’ve died. “If
only I had the chance to live another way”,
“If only life had been more fair”
is all that they can say
to justify unhappiness, to try and stem the tears
that water all the bitterness that’s grown
throughout the years.
And
so they nurse unhappiness and rock their lives
away,
surviving, more or less, the same each dragging
day.
Shadow people in shaded lives in jaded, faded
teams.
Sullen husbands and sullen wives amidst their
sullied dreams
And
some who are more honest know the fault is all
their own
and tell themselves that nothing grew because
no seed was sown.
So nothing came of nothing, all because they were
afraid,
and chances didn’t happen as there were
no chances made.
^back
to top
|
| SO
FAST
Sometimes
it seems so pointless – it’s all a
waste of time
You spend a lifetime saying sorry for some unintended
crime
you thought you'd done, but then discover that
it wasn't that at all
and once again you find you're stranded with your
back against the wall
Sometimes
it seems so hopeless - this being all alone
It doesn't matter what you do or say, you really
should have known
that all the poems and the songs are really getting
in the way
and words are never quite enough to say the things
you want to say
CHORUS
You go so fast, and yet you know it doesn't last
and soon you find you've passed yourself, a long
time ago
You do it well, and yet you know it hurts like
hell
and still you find you tell yourself, it really
doesn't show
So you
go walking on the cliffs, and gazing down into
the sea
and all the time you know you're searching for
the perfect place to be
and when you find an unknown cave where you can
run away and hide
Well it will always be the one that will get covered
by the tide
You're
sitting rocking in a corner with your head held
in your hands
and watching life go trickling by to end up buried
in the sands
of time, and you can't go back yet you can't go
forward too
until you come to terms with all the things you
can't undo
CHORUS
It seems
you're standing in the snow, your body frozen
in the night
You've got your face pressed to the window watching
people warm and bright
You try to summon up the courage to go knocking
on the door
But know that they will only want to know what
you're collecting for....
It's only
yesterday's papers, drifting in the air
Images of pictures of the face that isn't there
Telling of the stories of the tales you never
read
and the whispers of the meanings of the words......
you never said........
CHORUS
SONG,
Copyright SL Day
^back
to top
|
| SONG
FOR SUE – ARE YOU LISTENING?
It’s
early in the morning, the winter wind blows chill
The frost is crackling underfoot as I walk down
the hill
The coming sun turns ice to fire upon the frozen
lake
And all around, the plaintive sound of wildfowl
as they wake
Are
you listening? Can you hear me call?
Can you hear me? Are you there?
The
winter sun paints colour on the greyness of the
sea
The oyster catchers flash their wings and dance
so gracefully
The lonely beaches stretch ahead towards the distant
strand
And quietly the soothing sea is whispering on
the sand
Are
you listening? Can you hear me call?
Can you hear me? Are you there?
I
know that we’ve been through this whole
thing before
And each time it seems that we both come back
for more
I know now that I failed to show that I care
But we know, in our lives, there’s so much
to share
I’m
calling. Are you listening out?
Are you listening? Are you there?
Flying
high up in the sky, the world is spread beneath
I taste the sharpness of the air with every breath
I breathe
My worries and my cares are left behind me on
the ground
But still the call goes out to you, a cry without
a sound
I’m
calling. Are you listening out?
Are you listening? Are you there?
I
know that we’ve been through this whole
thing before
And each time it seems that we both come back
for more
I know now that I failed to show that I care
But we know, in our lives, there’s so much
to share
I’m
calling. Are you listening out?
Are you listening? Are you there?
Copyright SL Day
^back
to top
|
TIME
Time
it waits for no man
Time it hurries by
Time is running fast
From when we’re born until we die
And
it’s time we’re always fighting
Against time we can’t defend
And it’s time that marks the seconds
That remain until the end
Mark
time, make time, lose time, gain time
No time, slow time, on time, now
Find time, prime time, in time, do time
Keep time, sleep time, stop time, how?
Copyright
SL Day
^back
to top
|
| WHO
IS STANDING STILL?
The mindless
crowds act out their mime,
Such entertainment free!
Without the words you can’t have rhyme
Or reason, it seems to me
You on
a train, me by the line,
You pass me by on a hill.
Answer this simple question of mine
Who is standing still?
I’ve
spent my life committing a crime
that I’m just beginning to see,
I’ve been spending my life just passing
time
Or has it been passing me?
Copyright
SL Day
^back
to top
|
|
